Life-Cycle Engineering Design

K. Ishii Life-cycle engineering seeks to incorporate various product life-cycle values into the
early stages of design. These values include functional performance, manufacturability,
Associate Professor.
serviceability, and environmental impact. We start with a survey of life-cycle engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Stanford University,
research focusing on methodologies and tools. Further, the paper addresses critical
Stanford, CA 94305
research issues in life-cycle design tools: design representation and measures for
life-cycle evaluation. The paper describes our design representation scheme based on a
semantic network that is effective for evaluating the structural layout. Evaluation
measures for serviceability and recyclability illustrate the practical use of these
representation schemes.

1 Introduction
Design for manufacturability (DFM) has proven itself as a
key concept in competitive product development. DFM
helped many US manufacturers improve product quality,
reduce cost, and shorten development cycles. More recently,
life-cycle engineering design has emerged as an extension to
DFM that covers not only manufacturability, but issues re-
lated to the entire product life-cycle (Fig. 1). With increased
attention to the environment, the definition of life-cycle now
covers not only that of a single product, but resources that
result in the life-cycle of a manufacturer's line of products:
solid materials, fluid and gas emissions, and energy.
Life-cycle engineering seeks to maximize a product's con-
tribution to the society while minimizing its cost to the
manufacturer, the user, and the environment. We focus on
design and manufacturing decisions that significantly impact
the product life-cycle. Most researchers agree that decisions
made during the early stages of design determine more than
80 percent of the life-cycle cost. Among the most significant
issues are the structural layout of a product and the materials
used. Life-cycle engineering requires designers to estimate
the life-cycle cost and attribute it to the design and manufac-
turing decisions. This paper focuses on (7) the current
methodologies and tools in life-cycle engineering design, (2)
significant research issues to further develop the field, and
(3) the author's own research results over the past several
years.
2 Recent Developments in Life-Cycle Engineering
Many prior studies exist in the area of design for manufac-
turability (DFM). Perhaps the most successful methodology
is design for assembly (DFA; Boothroyd and Dewhurst, 1983).
Their computer program asks the user a series of questions
about the handling, orientation, and insertion of parts during
assembly, and evaluates the design in terms of the assembly
time, its breakdowns, and assembly efficiency. Other promi-
nent DFA methods include those of Westinghouse (Sturges
and Kilani, 1992) and Hitachi-GE (Miyakawa et al, 1990).
Contributed by the Design Engineering Committee for publication in
the Special 50th Anniversary Design Issue. Manuscript received Sept. 1994;
revised Nov. 1994. Technical Editor: B. Ravani.
Reuse
*- Assembly
Consumer
Recycle
Raw Service
Material Disposal
^
Environmental
Impact
Fig. 1 Product life-cycle
There is also a wealth of research on component design
for producibility. Poli (1988) developed a methodology to
evaluate a plastic part design. The key question is the part
complexity: the number of geometry features such as ribs,
bosses, snaps, and cutouts. The orientation of features is also
important since it influences the number of axes of draw.
Poli's methodology essentially gives an early estimate for
tooling cost and molding cost. The natural extension of these
programs is to incorporate the manufacturability concept in
the computer aided design environment. Dixon's group (1986)
applied AI technology to accomplish redesigns. The purpose
of this class of programs is to monitor the CAD data as the
designers develop their candidate designs, find if any of the
design rules are violated, provide reasons for the flaw, and
suggest remedies. Design for robustness has also targeted
component designs. Taguchi (1993) has been instrumental in
proliferating this concept, which seeks a design that is insen-
sitive to uncontrollable noise such as manufacturing errors
and operational conditions.
Life-cycle issues during the product ownership period have
also attracted attention. Ownership quality not only affects
warranty costs, but also has a major impact on product image
and repurchase intent. Reliability design (Birolini, 1992) and
failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA; Ormsby et al.,
1991) are traditional methodologies that identify potential
weaknesses in the design. However, engineers must not only
consider reliability but also address ease of service and
simultaneously specify support logistics. Hence, design for
serviceability (DFS) has attracted significant interest as a
method to enhance product ownership quality (Gershenson
and Ishii, 1992).

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Functional
Design
Layout
Design
Detailed
Design
Design
Process
Fig. 2 Life-cycle design methodologies, product life-cycle, and
design cycle
Recent years have seen a surge of work in environmentally
conscious design and manufacturing. Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) is a broad methodology for identifying environmental
burdens that arise from a product. The US Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA, 1993) developed documents that
address life-cycle concerns from raw material acquisition to
final product disposition and include total energy use and
pollution impacts. LCA seeks to minimize the environmental
impact of the manufacture, use and eventual disposal of
products without compromising product functions. So far,
most LCA studies have focused on single material products
such as disposable drink containers and diapers. For complex
products such as automobiles and appliances, LCA is often
too time consuming for designers to implement themselves.
Allenby's methodology (1991), commonly known as design for
environment (DFE), ranks various environmental issues per-
taining to each life-cycle stage. His method provides a more
qualitative evaluation of designs and is more applicable to
early stages of design. Product take-back laws in Europe and
the recyclability laws in Japan provide a more focused goal.
Many researchers have focused on product retirement (Burke
et al., 1992; Marks et al., 1993). The key is the "simultaneous"
planning for post-life use of the product in the early stages of
design, i.e., design for product retirement (DFPR).
Each methodology mentioned above brings benefits to
engineering design. Figure 2 classifies the methodologies in
terms of the applicable stage of product life-cycle (horizontal
axis) and design cycle (vertical axis). Obviously, life-cycle
design requires the combination of all the viewpoints (Alting,
1992). However, combining the use of all the tools is not
trivial. Quality Function Deployment (QFD; Hauser and
Clausing, 1988) is a powerful tool for relating customer
requirements, functional specifications, product design, and
process characteristics. Whereas QFD guides design teams in
achieving the integration, engineers can further benefit from
a more quantitative methodology.
3 Fundamental Research Issues
An integrated life-cycle design methodology must help
engineers estimate the life-cycle implication of a candidate
design, identify cost drivers, and facilitate simultaneous de-
sign of the product, the manufacturing specification, service
logistics, and product retirement plan. Such a task is most
effective at the layout design stage, at which time the design
is still preliminary and many decisions are uncertain. The
evaluation measure must be flexible enough to accommodate
this uncertainty. Another requirement is that the methodol-
ogy is easy to use and does not pose a significant additional
burden to the engineers. We identified the following issues as
our current research challenge.
(1) Design Representation Scheme: A life-cycle evaluation
tool requires a flexible set of data that contains pertinent
information about the candidate design. Typical information
required includes structural configuration of the components,
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their fastening methods, the material of the components, and
their size. One must design a data structure such that engi-
neers require very little time to specify the necessary infor-
mation. The key is to find the smallest set of data that
facilitates the evaluation for the entire product life-cycle. The
author finds the use of a semantic network to be an effective
representation scheme for the evaluation of layout designs.
(2) Identification of Life-cycle Evaluation Knowledge: Previ-
ous research in DFM has developed a significant knowledge-
base and techniques in evaluating life-cycle costs. DFA and
component producibility evaluation methods are well estab-
lished. However, many life-cycle issues remain unexplored.
Ownership quality as perceived by the customers is still
unclear, beyond the failure frequencies and serviceability
costs. Environmental compatibility is still vast and difficult to
evaluate. One must package this knowledge in a form appli-
cable to the evaluation of early designs.
(5) The Evaluation Measure: The author considers the
life-cycle cost of achieving certain functions to be the most
useful evaluation measure. Further, if one can analyze the
breakdown of the cost, engineers can use that information to
improve the candidate design. Unfortunately, early design
data do not provide accurate estimate of the life-cycle cost.
Hence, one must devise a measure for estimating the life-cycle
cost from the evaluation knowledge identified above. Again,
for DFA, a wealth of research and validation studies have
resulted in useful and sufficiently accurate evaluation mea-
sures. We must continue to refine these measures and de-
velop new measures for other life-cycle costs to seek an
integrated evaluation tool. The task of life-cycle product
structuring also poses a challenge. We must develop a mea-
sure of cost to achieve product variations, and compare that
with the importance of the variations in pursuing customer
base and return in profits.
(4) Simultaneous Design for Product Life-Cycle: The above
research challenges address design evaluations. The author
believes that these methodologies can be adapted to facilitate
an environment for simultaneous design of products, the
manufacturing specifications, service logistics, and retirement
plans. For example, assembly evaluation often involves quali-
tative simulation or "walk through" of the assembly process.
Serviceability analysis can also lead to efficient design of
service logistics and manufacturing plans for spare parts.
The following sections describe our challenges to these
research issues. We focus on a unified representation scheme
that accommodates layout design evaluation for assembly,
service, and retirement. For serviceability and retirement
analysis, we have identified the necessary evaluation knowl-
edge and developed our original measures of cost estimates
and procedures to compute and analyze the measures. The
procedures also facilitate simultaneous design of service lo-
gistics and advanced planning for product retirement.
4 Design Representation for Structural Layout
To facilitate the evaluation of layout structure, we propose
the use of LINKER, a hierarchical semantic network com-
prising components and subassemblies (nodes) and the rela-
tionships between the nodes (links). Figure 3 shows the
LINKER representation of a common drip-type coffee maker.
To accomplish automated reasoning about the design, we
must define both the syntax and the semantics of the network
notation (Woods, 1975). Our current scheme targets the
analysis for assembly, service, and product retirement. We
currently use four types of nodes for the design description,
defined as follows:
(Nl) COMPONENT: A design element that cannot be dis-
assembled without permanent damage to the resulting pieces,
or loss of intended function following reassembly with the
resulting pieces.
JUNE 1995, Vol. 117/43
 hot water tube
engage
Nodes
- component Z ^
- subassembly •
- fastenerO
- process O
Links
- cover
-attach
nut
- attach & cover
- engage
- supports
carafeassy
Fig. 3 System represented as a hierarchical network
(N2) SUBASSEMBLY: A design element that can be disas-
sembled into 2 or more other elements and performs its
intended function following reassembly with the original ele-
ments.
(N3) FASTENER: A design element whose intended func-
tion or purpose is to maintain an assembled configuration of
2 or more components and/or subassemblies.
(N4) FASTENING PROCESS: An action or operation, ei-
ther physical or chemical in nature, whose function or pur-
pose is to maintain an assembled configuration of 2 or more
components and/or subassemblies.
The component, subassembly, fastener and process data
comprise part or material cost, removal time, installation
time, tools and training required to perform the action, the
name of the item or process, a user-defined part number or
code, and the next higher assembly (if applicable). We cur-
rently use five types of links:
(LI) COVERS: No physical connection exists between the
two items, but the first item in the link must be removed to
access the second. The structural implication is that the cover
is attached to or supported by some other item in the system.
(L2) ATTACHES TO: This represents a solid connection
with no relative motion between the two items during opera-
tion. This link is broken by physically removing the first item
from the second. When removing the second item in the link,
the first item remains attached (i.e., the link remains intact).
The structural implication is that the second item in the link
is attached to or supported by some other item in the system.
(L3) ATTACHES TO AND COVERS: This represents a
solid connection with no relative motion between the two
items during operation. This link is broken by physically
removing the first item from the second. When removing the
second item in the link, the first item in the link must be
removed to access the second. The structural implication is
that the second item in the link is attached to or supported
by some other item in the system.
(L4) ENGAGES: This represents a meshing-type connec-
tion with relative motion between the two items during
operation. This link can be broken by disengaging either of
the two items in the link. The structural implication is that
the 2 items are attached to or supported by some other
item(s) in the system.
(L5) SUPPORTS: This represents a solid connection with
no relative motion between the two items during operation.
This link is broken by either physically removing the second
(supported) item in the link, or by externally supporting the
second (supported) item in the link and then physically
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Fig. 4 Life-cycle design tool showing a clumped coffee maker
removing the first (supporting) item. The structural implica-
tion is that the supporting item is attached to or supported by
some other item in the system.
If a fastener or fastening process is required to maintain
the link, we use a link modifier, called a sublink. It augments
a link relation, such as "panel attaches to housing using
screws." Sublink data contains the number of fasteners or
process points, clearance around the fastener or process
point, tool orientation and, for fasteners, removal and inser-
tion direction. Figure 4 is a screen dump from our Linker
design representation for the coffee maker implemented in
ToolBook under Microsoft Windows.
The LINKER allows the user to evaluate a design from
various stages of the life-cycle: assembly analysis, labor oper-
ation and labor step analysis for service, and product retire-
ment analysis. Our experience with industrial collaborators
indicates that this integrated feature is an essential key to
promoting life-cycle engineering design. Each node or link
has a data page that the user can access by double clicking on
the graphical icon. Other data pages contain information for
assembly and service analysis. We believe LINKER can serve
as a broad tool for competitive product and process develop-
ment and support ISO 9000 activities. LINKER, as a layout
design representation, provides a front-end for our computer
program for Life-cycle Assembly, Service, and Retirement
(LASeR).
5 Design Evaluation Methodologies
5.1 Life-cycle Serviceability. Service Mode Analysis
(SMA) focuses on any form of service needs in estimating
life-cycle ownership quality (Gershenson and Ishii, 1992).
Service modes include regular maintenance, repair of failed
components or systems, or service for undesirable side ef-
fects. The computer can use the LINKER to infer a sequence
of labor steps needed to perform each mode of service.
Given a set of cost driving service modes and their frequen-
cies, the program can compute the total life-cycle service
costs from the cost of each labor step.
The inferencing process starts inside the system and works
its way out (Eubanks and Ishii, 1993). Starting with the
malfunctioning component, the program examines all associ-
ated links. Depending on link type and direction, as in
outgoing or incoming, the program will either: (i) generate a
required labor operation pair (disassembly and assembly); (2)
save the other component on a "component stack" for later
processing; (3) do both (1) and (2); or (4) do nothing. When
all links for the repair operation component have been
examined, any components saved on the stack are processed
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 in the same fashion. When the component stack is empty, the ers pay for production retirement. This trend urges engineers
program searches for a link to a next higher assembly. If it to make advanced plans for product retirement and seek
exists, the linked component will be processed next, thus recyclable designs. Again, LINKER provides an effective
moving up one level in the component hierarchy. If a next front-end for assisting in the advanced planning. Our method
higher assembly does not exist, the inferencing process termi- is based on a concept called "clumping." A "clump" is a
nates. collection of components and/or subassemblies that share a
We compute the labor step cost based on the labor time, physical relationship, and some common characteristic based
necessary tools and technician training required, and the part upon the end-of-life intent. Recycling requires that materials
cost and part availability. The labor step cost (LSC) is: and fastening methods within the clump be compatible with
existing reprocessing technologies (Mark et al, 1993). For the
LSC = {[(tL + pL) x cLR] + [cP+pP]) (1) coffee-maker example, one can group the product into two
recycling clumps and one reuse clump. One would recover
where: tL = labor time (hours) the plastic from the housing and the aluminum from the
pL = labor time penalty (hours) bottom cover and hot plate assembly. Since the carafe is an
cLR = labor rate ($/hour) easily breakable item, it can serve as a service replacement.
cP = part or material cost ($) These clumps will not require further end-of-life disassembly.
pP = part or material cost penalty ($) The issue is whether these clumps can be economically
The labor time is the sum of handling time and either separated, reprocessed, and sold. Components can also be
fastening or unfastening time. We add a labor time penalty to grouped for disposal. If the re-use or recycle value of a
account for special tooling requirements, special technician portion of the product is negligible, one might clump it for
training requirements, fastener clearance and tool orienta- disposal and eliminate the disassembly cost. Of course, if the
tion. Part replacement adds to the part cost and accesses a disposal clump contains a hazardous or toxic material, one
penalty based on part availability. We can now use Eq. (1) to must disassemble the system further to isolate and process
estimate the life-cycle service cost LCSC: the offending material.
Disassembly and reprocessing costs determine the system
n m
/ / recycling cost. For a given system, as the number of individ-
LCSC E E \fRj,k E LSC; (2)
jt=i
ual clumps increases, the disassembly costs rise, and the
./=! reprocessing costs fall. Large, complex clumps, while easily
where: = removed from the system, require more complex reprocessing
fRj.k frequency of labor operation / associated
techniques. A larger number of simple, homogeneous clumps
with service mode k
may require more time to disassemble, but are simpler to
LSCjj = labor step cost i associated with labor
reprocess. The challenge in product retirement is to develop
operation j
the most appropriate level of disassembly. The general retire-
I = number of labor steps associated with la-
ment cost equation takes the form:
bor operation j
m = number of labor operations associated Total Retirement Cost = Disassembly Cost
with service mode phenomenon k
n = number of service mode phenomena be- + 53 (Clump Reprocessing Cost),
ing evaluated (typically 5 to 10)
We compute the labor step costs for a set of repair where: = total number of clumps (3)
operations and cost drivers displayed on a summary screen as
shown in Fig. 5. Values displayed are step cost, frequency of System disassembly cost is a key factor in the analysis for
occurrence over the entire repair operation set, and total product retirement. The total disassembly time for a system
life-cycle cost (frequency X cost). Users can interpret the (with no clumps) is calculated by summing the individual
cost breakdowns and seek improvements by redesigning the disassembly times for each element in the system, Eq. (4).
structure or enhancing the reliability of components and / m n
systems. O, = E Q + E (/„ X F)j + E (Pn X P)k (4)
1= 1 ;' = 0 k =0
5.2 Advanced Planning for Product Retirement. The
product take-back laws in Europe mandate that manufactur- where: Ds = system disassembly cost
C, = time to remove component
Fj = time to remove fastener
fllc £<ffl Help
Pk = time to remove or undo process
/ • = number of fasteners associated with one
Labor Step Analysis Summary
link
:• Service Cost! K; pn = number of process points associated with
::::::
;: ::gKi] : : : : : :
; Frequency
one link
::xr?tesri::::::::::::
Cost Ratmg:||52 | : ; : x : x : x : x-: : xox : x : x-x : : : 5 : .iiB'x
/ = total number of components in system
m = total number of links with fasteners
Repair hat plate assy
install base cover to lo
n = total number of links with fastening pro-
Install base cover to ho cesses
remove base cover from h
After calculating the disassembly costs, one must evaluate
remove base cover from I
remove hot water tube fr
the reprocessing costs for each clump. Unlike disassembly,
:old water tube f reprocessing cost is extremely difficult to estimate at the
Install cold water tube layout design stage. By the time products are ready for
install hot water tube t retirement, which could be more than 10 years for durable
| Labor Operation Summary [

:•:•:! Navigation M m goods, reprocessing technology and demand for recovered

material could be very different from what it is today. In lieu
of a reliable cost model, we apply a knowledge-based tech-
nique called the Design Compatibility Analysis (Ishii, 1992)
Fig. 5 Output screen for serviceability evaluation

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JUNE 1995, Vol. 117/45
 to obtain a qualitative rating and then map it to a rough cost
estimate. The analysis routine looks first at the components
in the clump. It checks the knowledge base for any rules
dealing specifically with components' material and post-life
intent for the clump. The degree of compatibility maps to a
[0, 1] rating, as follows.
very compatible 1.0
compatible 0.8
limited compatibility 0.6
incompatible 0.2
hazardous . 0.0
compatibility unknown 0.5
The compatibility rules (C-data) represent expert knowl-
edge of the ease of reprocessing. A C-data contains its ID
number, the associated design components/features, a com-
patibility descriptor such as "very good" or "poor," reasons
and suggestions, and most important, the conditions for the
data to be true. Here is an example describing material
incompatibility.
C-data: ID = dfr016
elements = material A, material B, intent
descriptor = incompatible: 0.2
reason = One ppm of PVC mixed with PET
will cause discoloration of the PET.
suggestion = Try substituting polycarbonate for
PVC.
conditions = material A ="pet",
material B ="pvc",
intent is primary recycling. (5)
Then, DCA individually compares each component with
every other component, fastener, and process in the clump,
creating the set [0,1]", where n is the number of matching
compatibility data for the clump. We then map [0,1]" into a
single clump compatibility rating CC(s) e [0,1] for each
clump, s, using the following function.
(1) the maximum in the set, if it consists only of numbers
greater than or equal to 0.5.
(2) the minimum in the set, if it contains at least one
number less than 0.5.
(3) 0.5 if the rule set is empty, indicating neutral compati-
bility.
To map the [0, 1] rating to cost, we use Eq. (6). The cost
decays exponentially as the compatibility increases. The cost
curve is a result of a series of discussions with industry. If
clump compatibility CC(s) = 1.0, we assume the cost to re-
process the clump is equal the market value of the recovered
material. A clump with CC(s) = 0 indicates that there is a
hazardous or toxic material in the clump and a reprocessing
cost of infinity. If the clump has a rating of "incompatible,"
i.e., CC(s) = 0.2, then we assume that the clump is not worth
reprocessing and it must be disposed of. Hence we assign a
standard landfill cost for the clump, computed as a function
of its weight or volume.
ln(CC(s))
CRC(s) = LFC(s)x
ln(0.2)
where: CRC(s) = Clump Retirement Cost
LFC(s) = Landfill Cost
CC(s) = Clump Compatibility
Equation (6) substituted into Eq. (3) provides the total
product retirement cost. Figure 6 shows the output of the
retirement analysis for the coffee-maker example.
5.3 Industrial Example. We applied our tool to two
models of an in-door ice dispenser from GE refrigerators.
The primary difference between these two designs is that the
1992 model dispenses ice using a primarily mechanical sys-
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Elle Edit Help
R e t i r e m e n t Cost Analysis
Total Product Retirement Cost - $ 2.27
Combined Retirement Costs
System Disassembly Cost .VX\\XXVVXVVvVVVVVS3
+ Clump ReprocessinRCost ^ ^ ^ 1 0.63
= TOTAL RETIREMENT COST
to
2.27
Clump Compatibility 8 Cost Brcakdi
Index Cost
Cltunp Retirement Cost Breakdown
[HJ fcpfocesiing cost g | disassembly cost
D.37J
- f clump 1 T.:. : l:! : : : .:. : ;:.:-:-:-:'i ! !
t
0.920
1.000
-Sr-
oi
clump 4
clump 5
• : ; ; :7
Total 0.63 10 J 0.92
[ Quit j:i;;;j;i:| Design Description fi;;i| Navigation fjjiiij Evaluatel
Fig. 6 Retirement cost breakdown of ice dispenser assembly
tern of springs, wires, and an inertial damper, whereas the
1993 model dispenses ice using an electro-mechanical
solenoid assembly. The 1993 model is a simpler design and
has fewer moving parts. For assembly evaluation, we used the
Hitachi-GE Assembly Evaluation Method, while the program
used our original methods for serviceability and retirement
analysis.
For all three areas of the life-cycle analysis, the new (1993)
ice dispenser model shows a significant decrease in cost.
Assembly costs decreased by 19 percent, service by 27 per-
cent, and recycling costs by 23 percent. The fewer numbers of
components in the new model contributed significantly to
these decreased costs. Note that we assumed proportional
clumping strategies for both ice dispensers, since we normally
compare clumping strategies for a single design to improve
its overall recyclability.
The case study established the high potential of our tool as
a life-cycle design aid in the layout stages of product develop-
ment. The key feature is the consolidated design representa-
tion LINKER, which allows rapid evaluation of various life-
cycle costs. We do not claim our model to be an accurate cost
estimator, but the tool does identify cost drivers and allow
users to compare different design alternatives. To validate
the cost model, we are currently tracking the actual cost of
the new product. Early indications show that the reduction in
manufacturing cost is close to our prediction, although some
of the improvement comes from parts standardization and
better product line structuring. Validation of the service and
retirement costs would require continued monitoring.
6 Conclusions and Future Work
This paper began with a survey of methods aimed at
improving the life-cycle quality at the early stages of design
and identified the significant research issues in developing an
(6) integrated life-cycle design tool: design representation and
life-cycle evaluation measures. We then presented a repre-
sentation based on a semantic network and evaluation meth-
ods for serviceability and product retirement. These methods
led to a PC-based computer program that allows the designer
to quickly evaluate a layout design for life-cycle costs.
Our software addresses a rough model of the structure
and obviously is not a comprehensive design tool. We view
our model as a vehicle to develop practical methodologies,
particularly in identifying the pertinent parameters and eval-
uation measures. Within our collaborating companies, the
model has significantly raised awareness of life-cycle cost
issues and led to practical training materials. Likewise, our
cost model does not target accurate cost estimates, but rather
Transactions of the ASME
 seeks to identify cost drivers and capture relative differences
among design alternatives. We believe such rough cost mod-
els are still useful in guiding the designers at the early stages.
Whereas our prototype shows promising results, there are
many more challenges in life-cycle engineering design. De-
sign representation and evaluation measures continue to be
the central research issues in our future endeavors.
(7) Addressing functional designs: LINKER only contains
structural information about the design and thus cannot
attribute the costs to functional intent. We also cannot read-
ily incorporate failure modes and effects analysis into the
current program. Some form of functional representation
must accompany the corresponding structural layout.
(2) Total life-cycle evaluation: The current program evalu-
ates assembly, service, and product retirement separately.
Whereas the designer can use the program iteratively to
improve life-cycle quality, we ultimately want the total life-
cycle cost including the environmental impact. Missing pieces
include early evaluation of components, service logistics and
support cost, and most importantly, the cost of environmen-
tal impact beyond product retirement.
(3) Life-cycle design of product structure: Our previous ef-
fort focused on a single product. Most companies provide a
line of products to cover the widest customer preference.
One must look at the life-cycle of the entire product line and
accommodate the necessary model variations in a most cost
effective manner.
Acknowledgments
Sponsors of this research include the National Science
Foundation, NASA Lewis Research Center, General Elec-
tric, General Motors, and Ford. The author also acknowl-
edges the members of the Life-cycle Design Laboratory at
Ohio State University for their work that led to this paper.
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